


Fragility

by SpookyMiscreant



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gore, M/M, Near Death, The Bite was a Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 04:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20147692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpookyMiscreant/pseuds/SpookyMiscreant
Summary: “You must be Stiles.” The words fond and amused.“You’re the clever one, Stiles.” Pleased words accompanied by a surprisingly soft grip on his chin despite the claws digging into his skin.“I like you, Stiles.” This time the words were whispered like a lover’s caress against the sliver of skin peeking out from his sleeve.“Yes or no, Stiles?” Words delivered with impatience and demanding, but with no heat.Odd that Stiles found himself thinking of the time he’d made a choice, as he lay bleeding out in the middle of Shakespeare Park knowing he’d never get to make another choice again, much less take Peter up on his offer from so long ago.





	Fragility

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6: the bite was a proposal  
I'm a smidge late but oh well! This is so sad and dark and I'm sorry!!!

_ “You must be Stiles.” The words fond and amused.  _

_ “You’re the clever one, Stiles.” Pleased words accompanied by a surprisingly soft grip on his chin despite the claws digging into his skin.  _

_ “I like you, Stiles.” This time the words were whispered like a lover’s caress against the sliver of skin peeking out from his sleeve.  _

_ “Yes or no, Stiles?” Words delivered with impatience and demanding, but with no heat. _

Odd that Stiles found himself thinking of the time he’d made a choice, as he lay bleeding out in the middle of Shakespeare Park knowing he’d never get to make another choice again, much less take Peter up on his offer from so long ago. 

How many times had he said “No” this time? 

How many times had he screamed it? 

How many times had he prayed that one of his pack members could hear him? 

He didn’t even know who he was praying to, he hadn’t believed in a higher power since the last time he’d seen the inside of the hospice. 

Maybe that’s why his prayers went unanswered. 

A chuckle ripped through his shredded chest causing blood to well up in his throat. He spit it out as best he could and tried to get his cold, numb hand to work. He wanted to say goodbye to his father, but did he want his father’s last memory of his only child be the sound of him dying? 

No, that wouldn’t do at all. He slowly wormed his hand into his back pocket, the phone slippery with blood. 

He sends what he thinks is a goodbye text to his father, but he couldn’t really be sure through the tears, blood loss going to his head, and blood staining everything. Then as his head swam with the ever approaching black out before death he decided to call Peter Hale. A man he hadn’t seen since he’d left for college two years ago. A man that Stiles was thinking about a lot in his last moments.

What if Stiles had said yes four years ago? 

What if Stiles had left with Peter to travel the world two years ago? 

What if Stiles had been able to call him sooner?

“Stiles? How lovely to see your name on my phone. I’m actually on-” 

“Stiles why does your breathing sound like that? Stiles! Why can’t I hear your heartbeat through the phone?!” 

The dying human could hear Peter growing more frantic with each breath that wetly fell from his lips, but he didn’t think he could speak even if he tried. 

“Stiles please answer me. Where are you?” Peter’s voice sounded wet too. 

It wasn’t funny, it really truly wasn’t funny, but Stiles found a giggle bubble out of him. It didn’t really sound like a laugh, but he didn’t really think it was funny that he wasn’t going to die alone and yet he couldn’t actually speak to let Peter know he was dying. 

“Darling I heard that. I heard your sound. Try to tell me where you are. Please Stiles. Please try for me.” Peter Hale sounding that broken should be a crime against humanity, and the sound of it tore at something in Stiles. 

The ‘sh” sound that came out of him sounded more like a groan and less like the beginning of the word “Shakespeare”, but he was trying. 

“Sh- what sweet boy? Keep going, please.” Peter was sobbing now. 

Stiles hated that sound, hated it more than he hated almost anything in the world. 

“Ache” The word came out guttural and broken. 

“I hear you. Shake what Stiles? Shakes and Tots?” 

“N-No.” 

“Shake Shack?” 

“No.”

“Shakespeare?” 

“-es.” 

“Okay. I understand. Shakespeare. Does that mean Shakespeare park just off campus?” Peter was always the second smartest in the pack. 

“-es.” The ‘y’ sound was hard to make so Stiles didn’t even try that time.

“I’m almost there Stiles. I’m so close. Are you still in danger? Is it still there?” Peter was close? How?

“K-kill-ed” It fucking hurt to speak so much, but Peter needed to know that Stiles was going to die but at least he took the mother fucker down with him. 

“Good boy. What was it?” Peter sounded more put together this time. 

“O-meg-a.” 

“Oh my sweet boy, why would you ever go after an Omega alone?” Peter’s question irritated the part of Stiles that didn’t care that he was dying, that only cared that no one thought he was an idiot. 

An angry grunt escaped him followed by a pained groan.

“So not on purpose, an accident then.” Peter sounded angry now. 

Peter angry brought back memories Stiles was almost fond of. He closed his eyes and let his memories roll over him in warm waves of contentment. 

-

Stiles groaned, his head throbbing as streaks of light burned his eyes. He pushed through the pain and blinked himself into awareness. He was in a hospital bed, which made sense when his memories finally came crashing back in. He should've been dead, might actually be dead if he let himself go down that particular road. 

"Son." 

His father's words came out in a soft creak instead if the warm rubble they normally were. Almost as if the former Beacon Hills sheriff had cried himself hoarse, and that thought punched a hole through Stiles more than any supernatural enemy could ever hope to do. 

"D-a-d" Each letter a dry rasp. 

His father hushed him gently as he moved closer to hold his cheek in his calloused hand. 

"Your throat was pretty torn up. Most of you was pretty torn up, actually." His voice lost volume leaving him to only mouth the last word. 

"S-s-orry" Stiles needed his father to know he never ever wanted him to grieve a family member again. 

Before his dad could say anything the door was opening and Peter Hale was walking in with two coffees. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, and at the sight of Stiles he shuddered. A shudder Stiles felt in his own chest. 

"Good morning Briar Rose." Peter smiled gently at him as he approached. 

"Name w-was A-A-uor-a." Stiles tried to snark back but once again was reminded of how sensitive his throat was. 

"Yes it was but I don't think you're some beautiful, unknowable phenomenon. The other name suits you much better." Peter's gentle smile shifted into his typical know-it-all smirk. 

Stiles found himself smiling as a string wave of nostalgia washed over him, reminding him of days spent researching or just talking with Peter. 

Instead of trying to speak again Stiles just nodded at him before turning back to face his father, whose blue eyes were filled with tears. 

"'m here." Stiles whispered, his numb hand coming up to rest against his father's arm. 

"And I'm so glad for that, son." 

Peter spoke up again, drawing his attention away from his dad, "You're probably wondering how I was able to get you here." 

Stiles nodded again, shifting to watch Peter as the older man handed his dad a cup and both men sat down on either side of his bed. 

"It was a serendipitous chance that lead me to visit Beacon Hills. I landed at LAX and was going to get a hotel room, but the flight left me with a need to smell fresh air free of the stench of humanity." Peter intoned melodically, almost as if he was a bard in the dark ages. 

Stiles rolled his eyes, and immediately regretted it. 

"So I started the arduous trip back home in the middle of the night, on a whim. A song came on the radio that reminded me of you and I suddenly found myself taking the highway that went by your school instead of the one that went straight to Beacon Hills. I don't know what I was thinking or why I was being so impulsive, you know I rarely act on impulse after the disasters of my youth." Peter said with his own eye roll. 

Stiles huffed a breath of laughter knowing Peter was referencing biting Scott, but an image of Peter alone in a hospital bed reminder Stiles that much of his young adult years were spent in a coma. 

"And then by some chance you called me. Not Scott, or Derek, or any of the others who could've potentially saved you." The look Peter gave him communicated that he knew Stiles hadn't called him to save him. He just hadn't wanted to die alone. 

"You're alive right now because nostalgia and romantic notions of the past brought us back into each other's paths on the one night you truly needed me." Peter gripped Stiles' hand in a rare moment of tenderness.

"How?" Stiles was having a slightly easier time talking now that he'd worked his vocal chords a bit. 

Peter's face shuttered and a small shiver went through him, "I regret not having your consent but I do not regret giving you the bite." 

His blue eyes were blazing as he stared into Stiles' before flashing them red. 

Something in Stiles snapped awake and a whine released from his shredded vocal chords. 

Peter had bitten him, but didn't he say all those years ago that survival wasn't guaranteed? Stiles had seen the wolves say that if someone was too close to death the bite could speed things along instead of healing them. Peter clearly realized the risk was worth a try, either it took or it didn't. The outcome of Stiles dying was three out of four. A scary thought now that he was here and alive, he didn't want to feel that peaceful finality again for a long long time. 

"I had always planned it so much differently. I had so many scenarios in my head, but you always did ruin my plans, clever darling." Peter smiled at him and Stiles remembered the charged atmosphere of the garage all those years ago. 

The bite was sacred, pack was more than family and Peter had wanted Stiles since day one. Stiles wondered about the different scenarios Peter had drummed up for a moment before dismissing those thoughts to listen. 

"Once I bit you I knew the change wouldn't be enough. I-" he cleared his throat before continuing " I hadn't seen that level of carnage in a long time. You needed a hospital and fast. I had to make a gurney out of tree branches and a blanket I found in my trunk, even with the gurney I still had to drag you to my car and leverage you into the bad seat." 

Peter swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room. 

Stiles couldn't look at his father, he knew there would be tears running down his dad's face. 

"Thank you." Stiles whispered. 

Peter grinned at him, though his eyes were pained. 

"Anything for you, darling."

"All those," a pause to work saliva into his mouth, "y-years ago, you offered more than pack." Another pause to lick his lips. 

"You offered more than being a beta."

Peter sat frozen staring at Stiles in shock, the former sheriff's wet, surprised laughter breaking the tension. 

"Hale, did you really not think he would research bite locations and their meanings?" Stiles looked back at his father, a smile on his lips at his father's words. 

"You know?" Peter was like a fish out of water, flopping between the Stilinski men's gazes. 

"Of course I know. He doesn't keep anything from me anymore. He figured it out right after you left." Father and son turned identical grins on Peter, though one was slightly hidden by a split lip and bruises. 

"He whined and cried about not going with you for weeks after he found out he had denied you twice." This time only father grinned while son turned an afronted look on him. 

"Stiles?"

Stiles didn't really know what Peter was asking, but he didn't think Peter really knew either. 

His throat was beginning to hurt more earnestly so he gently, carefully lifted his hand to caress Peter's cheek before baring his wrist to the alpha werewolf. 

"Yes." Stiles whispered his eyes burning supernaturally gold. 

Peter's whole body practically lit up, a genuine, pleased smile stealing its way across his face before he bared sharp fangs and bit down gently. 


End file.
